Eskimo
by JonasGrant
Summary: "Raw meat eater. That's what Eskimo means. Takes a hell of another meaning now." Follow the story of Ujarak, an young metis living on an Inuit reservation as he adapts his people's ancestral knowledge and his own experience of extreme situations to survive a world where the dead eat the living and the living are no better.


**A/N: I usually write character charts for stories like these, to keep the whole thing realistic and remind me who's who, but I never thought of adding the main character's chart to the beginning of the story. He's the protagonist, he shouldn't have any secrets to the readers, he IS the readers, in theory, so they should know all there is to know about their 'Carrier', so, here it is. **

**This story was inspired by the new Walking Dead game, Turok and Riddick. I thought; If Lee Everett was Richard Riddick, this game would be pretty interesting (Not more than it already is, though.) Then, I thought about what kind of character I could introduce to the zombie world that would be believable, relatable and still have a badass escaped convict thing about him and I thought about Turok, from the 2008 game. But I didn't want the guy to be a Mohawk or Kiowa or whatever, I wanted some tribe that still actively practiced survival in extreme conditions and could spawn someone suitable for this story, not some tribal warrior or whatever, but not some high-school american kid that takes charge of a survivor band, like you'll find all around this site. Inuits came to my mind instantly, resilient, resourceful and usually quite level headed. They spend most of their time clad in thick winter clothing, must do with unreliable supply routes, are often cut off from the rest of the world, many still hunt for sustenance. **

**Of course, they live in groups of hundreds or so, so a zombie story taking place in a reservation would get quite boring, which is why I brough our protagonist in America. Bound to be enough people there to make this thing worth reading. **

**Name**: Ujarak

**Age**: 22

**Nationality**: Canadian. Native American metis, Inuit/French-Canadian

**Height**: 188cm

**Weight**: 92kg

**Sexual Orientation: **Heterosexual

**Past partners (Girlfriends, boyfriends, other.): **1, Catherine, also a metis, left him because of his clumsiness in sexual relations and lack of experience.

**Current partner: **None.

**Occupation**: Part time waiter in reservation cantina. History of civilisation (CEGEP) student. Hunter (Recreational).

**Hates**: Lazyness, excessive hunting, his job, Greenpeace, religions (especially Christianity), racism.

**Dislikes: **Talking, people who talk too much.

**Likes**: Learning native-american history and legends, hunting with traditional weaponry, working out, Mohawk haircut, satiric humor, George Carlin.

**Loves**: Wild camping, seal hunting, jogging, historical reconstitutions of his people's way of life, which he attends every summer.

**Father**: George Lemay, carpenter.

**Mother**: Aga, unemployed.

**Technical skills:** Can maintain simple engines; motorcycle, snowmobile, scooter, ATVs to a limited extent.

Limited computer skills. (Only way to stay in touch with the rest of the world being internet)

Experienced at crafting traditional weaponry.

Excellent survival knowledge.

Limited carpenter training.

Can drive simple vehicle. No experience with driving cars.

**Combat skills:** Limited knowledge of ballistic weapons (Has used some, but no real experience.)

Experienced with bows.

Experienced with harpoons.

Comfortable with bolos.

Very comfortable with knives. (Skill earned from skinning animals for as long as he can remember)

Limited experience in fighting heavier and stronger adversaries (from being the smallest child at school and constantly bullied) can fight with fists if needed, but has little confidence in his hand to hand abilities.

**Spoken languages : **Inuktitut, French, English.

**Physical advantages: **

Powerful physique(Hunts alone in the tundra and ice fields, often has to carry prey for long distances, occasionally plays hockey, works out when bored, live in small reservation, always bored. )

Good reflexes (Developed by hunting seals from a young age)

Good eyesight over long distances.

**Physical Disadvantages:** Lack of fat reserves (Due to constant working out and French Canadian inheritance from father) reduces survivability when food supply limited.

Never learned any martial art, not very flexible, can raise arms well over shoulder height and touch feet, cannot kick above waist level nor reach the middle of his back.

Poor eyesight over smaller distances, often uses reading glasses.

**Normality VS Oddities: **Average small town guy, slightly geeky, history nut, above average physical condition, dislikes most team sports, loves to take part in month long reconstitutions of ancestral Inuit life style. Otherwise attends college (CEGEP) with hope of becoming history teacher and works at local cantina to pay for his summer hunting trips. Has self-confidence issues from childhood, slight speech impediment, dislikes being the center of attention, avoids responsibilities and leadership positions.

'**Dark secret': **None, never took part in any criminal activities nor military institution or secret societies.

0

0

0

Burning cars fill the street before the prison, crashed and fused to each other, looking like something big tried to pile them on top of someone. Crows fly around the whole place in circles, feeling wrong and evil, just like the handful of people walking around aimlessly. I crawled out quietly, so none of them spotted me yet. Doubt they'd call the police even if they did, they all look like they survived an explosion or something.

Three months stuck in an American prison, two spent with the guards gone, that's not what I expected from this trip.

I study civilisations and history, up in Quebec, my whole class came on this travel, the goal being to help in an Apalachee archeological site and look around how it's done.

My only mistake was to sit next to some shady redneck on the plane to Athens; he switched his luggage with mine or something, 'cause next thing I know, someone's yelling terrorist and pointing at me. Funnier yet, the damned thing went off and killed everyone in the plane just as they dragged my ass out and prepared the evacuation. Six hundred Americans killed, blamed on me.

No real surprise, we brown people tend to get blamed a lot when things go wrong on an airplane.

Behind me, a bunch of other inmates crawl out of the hole in the fence. None of us managed to get the armory door open, same as the personal effects room, so they're all wearing bright orange prison clothes, same as me.

Brandon Mars, our de facto leader, gets on his feet first and shakes himself. He's an old African-American man that reminds me of Morgan Freeman. He was convicted for murder, but none of us really bothered to ask him more about it.

'Us' not being the whole prison, way too many nut jobs in there for us to be friends with everyone, there's only three of us in our gang, Mars is the brain, I'm the muscles and Ali, some middle eastern guy, acts as our tech expert.

I turned a wooden broomstick and kitchen knife into an harpoon, although not serrated, and also turned a handful of shoe laces and paperweights into four bolos, all tucked in my pockets.

These are ancestral weapons of my people, but I didn't learn how to craft them from my parents or anything, I just always loved to learn about our history and often go hunting using weapons like these, just for the heck of it, meaning I'm in charge of keeping my two friends alive.

Well, not friends, I hate them and they hate me, but we worked together up until now. See, they too think I'm a terrorist and I know for a fact Ali's a child molestor, I want nothing to do with them from this point and I can see in their eyes they feel the same about me, so we all run in different directions, scattering amongst the hundreds of other prisoner and keeping away from the rotting people walking around.

One of the guys talks to a shuffling woman, standing in front of her and apparently making some pretty improper offers.

The woman tries to grab him by the neck, arms shooting out like cobras and the man stumbles back, right into two other shufflers.

This is fucked. Both men sink their teeth in his neck and shoulder while the woman kisses him… No, she's biting that guy's lower lips off.

The man goes down screaming and I get my ass back on the move, heading in the opposite direction.

Twelve other convicts follow me into some back alley. None of them is bigger than I am, so that doesn't make me too nervous. Plus, the guys in the prison call me Rock, both because someone once said I looked like the wrestler/actor –By which he meant I'm a muscular brown guy, racist asshole- and because my name, Ujarak, means stone. But that's just a name, what really got me their respect is my part in their escape, as I taught everyone how to make weapons out of scrap and gave them all a summary of how to kill human beings quickly using spears or harpoons, something my people's oral traditions were always very clear about. In turn, I learned about the layout of this city, perfected my grasp of the English language and was taught how to pick a lock and other useful tips I wouldn't have picked up anywhere but in prison.

Something gets up from behind a dumpster, two meters ahead. A human being, but something's wrong with him, his guts are dragging on the floor, threatening to trip him at every step.

"Stay back!" I bark, harpoon ready. Tradition has it I should be using a tip shaped like a human face to kill a human being, but fuck tradition.

Before the guards stopped showing up, I heard them talking about riots and sick people killing other people. I thought we would leave the prison to find riots all over the place, police officers trying to keep looters away from shops, riot squads running around and people making demands to television cameras. This, I never expected; injured or dead people walking around, as if on some very strong drug, biting other people without reason and no sign of the law anywhere. Things are very bad…

"Kill it!" Someone yells as the obviously dead guy closes half the distance between us.

Like I was planning to tickle it.

I don't need to throw the harpoon, I just stab the guy in the neck and angle the head upward to stab his brain. It's not easy, his skin resists somewhat and I must jerk the weapon forward twice to stab deep enough. I pull hard on the broomstick and take a step back.

The duct tape didn't hold and the tip of my weapon stayed in the dead guy's skull. Said dead guy is falling down very slowly, first to his knees, then on his face.

"Seems your tribal shit didn't hold up that good." The same voice teases from somewhere behind me.

What do you want to answer to that? I just keep on moving south, out of the alley and on to Lexington road. I could try the airport, to the north, but I can't fly a plane and doubt I'll find someone willing to give me a lift, especially with things the way they are now, I'm fairly certain that national park to the south is my best bet right now; stay away from civilisation for a while, until this all settles down, then find where the Canadian embassy is and make my way there.


End file.
